10 Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
News
A son has been found guilty of murder-
ing one of Britain’s richest men and try-
ing to kill his mother after years of har-
bouring resentment against the couple.
Thomas Schreiber left his mother
Anne for dead and stabbed to death Sir
Richard Sutton, her multimillionaire
partner, on April 7, the eighth annivers-
ary of the death of his father.
Schreiber, 35, never got over his
parents’ separation in 2002 and blamed
the couple for his father’s death from
alcoholism. After visiting his father’s
grave, Schreiber returned to Moorhill,
Sutton’s country mansion near Gilling-
ham, Dorset, and drunkenly attacked
his mother, 66, and her lover, 83.
Schreiber attacked Sutton in his
study with a glass tumbler at 6.30pm,
before stabbing his mother with a kit-
chen knife. He left her for dead in the
kitchen to chase Sutton upstairs, killing
him with two blows to the heart.
Anne Schreiber survived 15 stab
wounds to her chest, neck and back
after being flown by air ambulance to a
hospital in Bristol. She has been left
paralysed and can remember only the
start of the attack, when her son called
her a “gold-digging bitch” before plung-
ing a knife into her chest.
Schreiber showed no emotion
yesterday as the guilty verdicts for
murder and attempted murder were re-
turned in a majority decision by 11 of the
jurors. One juror sided with Schreiber’s
defence that he suffered diminished re-
sponsibility due to an “abnormality of
mental function”.
He claimed that he went “completely
crazy” and couldn’t stop attacking his
mother and Sutton after she told him:
“You are drunk just like your father.”
Mr Justice Garnham adjourned the
case for sentencing on Monday. He told
Schreiber: “The only sentence I can
pass is of life imprisonment but for the
offence of murder I have to set the mini-
mum number of years.” The judge said
that he would take the weekend to read
David Schreiber
died eight years
before the attackI
n the years after his parents
separated, Thomas Schreiber
was sent hate-filled letters by
his alcoholic father denouncing
his mother as a “gold digger”
for leaving him in 2002 for a
multimillionaire family friend (Will
Humphries writes).
David Schreiber drank himself to
death in 2013 but his son carried the
torch for his father’s alcohol-fuelled
invective against Anne Schreiber
and Sir Richard Sutton, an
aristocratic landowner and hotelier
worth about £300 million.
“I think when you hear that all the
time and you receive those letters, I
feel that toxicity was transferred on
to my brother,” Rose McCarthy, one
of Schreiber’s sisters, said.
Months before he carried out his
attack, Schreiber, 35, told a friend:
“My mum’s a psychotic evil selfish
gold digging bitch c*** whore. Plain
and simple.”
Schreiber’s unwillingness to hold
down a job in his twenties and
thirties led him to rely on a monthly
£1,000 allowance from Sutton and a
£100,000 lump sum given to him in
2015 in the hope he would buy his
own home. He never did.
From January 2019 he lived rent-
free in the annexe over the garage of
Moorhill, Sutton’s country mansion
near Gillingham, Dorset, but despite
this Schreiber repeatedly told his
mother and sisters that they were
gold diggers who were “bought” by
Sutton and had abandoned his
father and caused his death.
“I am the most genuine, smart
and total Schreiber of all my family
but sadly I am ignored and pushedNews Country house killing
Son guilty of murder after vengeful
Will Humphries
Southwest Correspondent
the victim impact statements and re-
flect on the severity of the case.
Schreiber had also pleaded guilty to
driving dangerously when he failed to
stop for armed police in a 135mph pur-
suit into central London. As he was de-
tained in Chiswick, he stabbed himself
in the chest and told officers: “Please
kill me now, please just shoot me.”
Winchester crown court was told
that Schreiber, who was unemployed,
became consumed by hatred and re-
sentment towards his mother and her
partner, despite living rent free at
Moorhill. He received a £100,000 lump
sum and a £1,000 monthly allowance
from the millionaire landowner,
The aspiring artist, who had taken 35
jobs since the age of 18, was driven by
anger at his mother for “abandoning”
his father, David Schreiber, to move in
with the baronet in 2003.
Schreiber believed that his mother
and two older sisters, Rose and Louisa,
had been “bought” by Sutton.
The “explosion of violence” came
after years of resentment occasionally
breaking out into fights with his sisters,
with Sutton intervening twice.
Schreiber would later describe how
he was humiliated by a row and wrote to
a friend last March: “I’m so sad to report
that my mind is consumed with hatred
of the very worst kind towards my
family. They really hurt me, betrayed
me and destroyed all trust. Simply put,
I contemplate murdering them all
morning, day and night. It’s not what I
want to think about but it’s the truth. I
want them to suffer.”
His recurring failures to maintain
any job or relationship left Schreiber
living in the “toxic” environment of
Moorhill, which only worsened during
the Covid-19 lockdown.
In a statement released after the ver-
dict, the Sutton family said: “We can
never bring back Sir Richard but his
spirit will very much live on. His values
of being warm, generous and compas-
sionate to everyone he met will be
carried forward by future generations.”
Detective Inspector Simon Huxter,
of Dorset police’s major investigation
team, praised the efforts of the first offi-
cers at the scene and subsequent medi-
cal assistance from paramedics and
hospital staff.
He said: “While Anne sadly suffered
serious life-changing injuries, the out-
come could have been even worse had
it not been for their intervention.”Killer carried on
father’s vendetta
against aristocrat
Behind the story under the carpet,” he told a friend in
January this year.
This narrative consumed his every
waking moment and led him to
launch a drunken knife attack on
the couple on April 7 — the eighth
anniversary of his father’s death —
in “revenge” for all the perceived
injustices they carried out against
his father and himself.
David Schreiber, a former public
schoolboy and failed art dealer, lived
off “a few family legacies” but by
2002 could not hold down a job
because of his drinking. Anne
Schreiber was providing for the
family through her physiotherapy
work. After the Schreibers separated
in 2002, Sutton made an offer to the
whole family to move into Moorhill
but Mrs Schreiber told her husband
he could only join them if he gave
up drinking. He “laughed” at that
ultimatum and the subsequent offer
by Sutton to fund his rehabilitation.
“Dad could be incredibly cruel,”
McCarthy said. “He could be
suicidal and had an antique gun and
often got it out and discharged it out
the window to get a reaction. He
would write suicidal notes and it
happened on a continual basis, you
couldn’t take him seriously. The day
before my exams he came into my
room at 3am and told me he was
going to kill himself. That was what
we were living under with an
alcoholic... it was having an
incredibly detrimental impact.”
Despite this Sutton gave Mr
Schreiber a bungalow on his estate
to live in and when he wasn’t drunk
he would sometimes have dinner
with his family in the mansion. He
was cared for in Moorhill during his
final months as he died from liver